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Sunday, 6 January 2013

Prepping material for smocking

Starting this year with not screen prints but a little go at using a smocking machine to gather material...

This is what happens when there's no internet connection and I'm at home with my mother - She was making some dresses for a new baby girl in the family...so thought I'd have a go...

The gathering machine Lots of needles to thread..(turning cog on the right)

Getting reading to thread the machine the strange wooden spool holding the cotton reels at the ready, can get a bit messy and tangle - this is a methodical and slow sort of thing.

Below is the machine threaded up. It's takes a while so steady...no sharp movements!

machine threaded - hooray!!

Ready to go...but first the material is soaped. This apparently helps the cloth run through the machine smoother and is less likely to break the needles, which would be a complete pain!

The material is wound on a thinnish stick and the starting edge of the material is inserted in the cog. There's a winding sort of key on the left of the picture (view first photo) which you turn with one hand whilst keeping an eye on turning the wooden stick with the material on.

Here's the start of the material coming out of the machine...love this ha ha!

And here it is at the end!

Yes it's a different piece of cloth...but see how it works! It would take hours to do this by hand and would not be half as neat. now for the actual stitching part...in the next blog I reckon, cheers.